Crossing Over

Jimena has always been poor. That is nothing new to someone who lives in Metlatonoco, though, which is the poorest city in all of Mexico. No one there knows what it's like to have proper food or clean drinking water. Instead, their education comes in the form of a tiny, one-roomed shack taught by a relief teacher, and to them, being able to read a children's book is considered a great feat. Still Jimena's family is morale...until her brother begins to change.

Her parents, Julio and Perla, are terrified as her brother shys away from the good, Christian path and begins the life of a thief. They are desperate to leave Metlatonoco in order to save their son, but they have no money or means to do so. That's when a close family friend, Maria, grows very ill. Despite the fact that their whole family is starving without enough to eat, they take the old woman into their home and feed her and care for her until her dying day. It is there, as Jimena is crouched over her, that Maria tells her, "Check under my blankets in my old house."

The old woman gave Jimena's family pesos. Enough pesos to help them cross over the border to America and to hopefully save her brother.